Louis Comfort Tiffany
- Movement / Style:
- Art Nouveau
- Notable Family Members:
- father Charles Lewis Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany (born February 18, 1848, New York, New York, U.S.—died January 17, 1933, New York, New York) was an American painter, craftsman, philanthropist, decorator, and designer, internationally recognized as one of the greatest forces of the Art Nouveau style, who made significant contributions to the art of glassmaking.
Early life and education
Tiffany was the son of the famous jeweler Charles Lewis Tiffany, who cofounded the stationery and fancy-goods store in 1837 that became Tiffany & Co., the American luxury company known for its sterling silver and diamond jewelry. At a young age Louis Tiffany declared that he wanted to become an artist, and he later studied under the American painters George Inness and Samuel Colman and also trained as a painter of narrative subjects in Paris. That he was also influenced by a visit to Morocco is evident in some of his major works. Returning to the United States, he became a recognized painter and an associate of the National Academy of Design, New York City; later he reacted against the academy’s conservatism by organizing, in 1877, with such artists as John La Farge and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the Society of American Artists.
Favrile glass
Tiffany’s experiments with stained glass, begun in 1875, led to the establishment three years later of his own glassmaking factory at Corona in Queens, New York. By the 1890s he was a leading glass producer, experimenting with unique means of coloring. He became internationally famous for the glass that he named Favrile, a neologism from the Latin faber (“craftsman”). Favrile glass, iridescent and freely shaped, was sometimes combined with bronzelike alloys and other metals; such examples, some signed “L.C. Tiffany” or “L.C.T.,” enjoyed widespread popularity from 1890 to 1915 and were revived again in the 1960s. His Favrile glass was admired abroad, especially in central Europe, where it created a new fashion.
Other glass projects
Having established a decorating firm that served wealthy New Yorkers, Tiffany was commissioned by U.S. Pres. Chester A. Arthur to redecorate the reception rooms at the White House in Washington, D.C., for which he created the great stained glass screen in the entrance hall (later removed and destroyed). He designed the chapel for the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893) in Chicago and the high altar in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.
Overwhelmed by the glass display of the brilliant French Art Nouveau designer Émile Gallé at the Paris exposition of 1889, Tiffany became interested in blown glass. From 1896 to 1900 he produced a vast amount of exquisite Favrile glass, many pieces achieving mysterious and impressionistic effects; his innovations made him a leader of the Art Nouveau movement. Tiffany’s firm was reorganized in 1900, after which he ventured into lamps, jewelry, pottery, and bibelots—small, ornamental objects. In 1911 he created one of his major achievements: a gargantuan glass curtain for the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City.
Legacy
Like his father, Louis was a chevalier of the Legion of Honor; he also became an honorary member of the National Society of Fine Arts (Paris) and of the Imperial Society of Fine Arts (Tokyo). In 1919 he established the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation for Art Students at his luxurious and celebrated Long Island estate (which he had designed in total), which in 1946 was sold to provide scholarship funds.